Knot my Pastime
by Ladyoflalaland
Summary: Tale of Two Cities A young girl is taught to knit with disastrous results. Little does she know that knitting will someday become her life. Told from a young Madame Defarge’s POV. Oneshot


**A/N: I am reading A Tale of Two Cities for school and have fallen in love with it and its characters. Interestingly enough, I just started learning to knit. The first time I did it was horrible and chaotic. Of course, like any good fangirl, I quickly turned my embarrassment into a story of Madame Defarge's first knitting lesson. It's supposed to be ironic. I'm just happy to be writing my first fic outside of the Les Mis fandom. R&R.**

**Told from a young Madame Defarge's POV**

*******

It started with tea. Innocent enough, I will admit, but my dearest Mama was planning something far more sinister – as mothers always are – than just a simple afternoon tea. I was halfway through an old biscuit (yes, I will admit that we were poor. Not something to be ashamed of, though: all good men are poor at onetime or another) when Mama announced that, today, I would have the high honor of learning to knit. I, of course, knew how to crochet, sew, and spin, for if I didn't: how else would a girl like I occupy her time? However, knitting was a new, unwanted challenge.

I was handed a ball of yarn and two rather formidable looking knitting needles. Then, Mama started to explain the _wonderful_ process of turning a single, long thread into a useful apparel item. I would begin with casting. Mama showed me how to wrap the yarn around my finger and then pull the needle through it and finally pull the whole contraption tight. Simple enough, a mad person could understand it, I supposed. It's a shame to Mama that I am simply uncoordinated, not mad.

I started to make the cast or to do the cast; it was too hard to tell if it was an action or a noun. So, I would go to pull the needle through the yarn and end up pulling all my old loops off the knitting needle. This would cause me to bite back one of the curses that I had learned on the streets and cause Mama to shake her head in exasperation. Still, I kept at it. Make loop, force needle through, pull the whole thing tight, lose loop, and start again. Over and over and over: I was sure that I would never master the art of _starting_ to knit.

My mind began to wonder after awhile. This pulled me into a rather meditative state. Suddenly, I jerked my head back up: the casting was done! I had, unknowingly, completed the first step in learning to knit! I jumped up quickly in an unladylike display of joy and knocked my yarn to the floor. Quickly, I scrambled to retrieve it and bowed a hasty apology to Mama.

Now I had a start to my piece, I had to make the body of it. Mama began to show me how to accomplish this simply, but, after a few seconds, I was totally lost.

"Wait please, Mama!" I yelled, "Which hand am I supposed to hold the needle with the casting thing on?"

Mama sighed, "You are right handed, child. Wouldn't you rather do all your work with that hand?"

I must have looked confused because then Mama gently placed the needle with thread on it in my left hand and gave me the one that I would be working with to hold in my right.

"Yes, yes of course. What now?" I asked quickly, to hide my embarrassment at not being able to resolve the simplest of problems.

"Now," She began slowly, "pull the needle in your right hand through one of the loops in the other needle and do this!" With a flourish, Mama moved her hand swiftly and the action was done. I was utterly confused.

Time past and the words "no, it is knit one, purl two!" and "No, no, take that out: it will leave in lump in your finished project!" Were spoken more than once. Finally, my thing was done: a lumpy, uneven, woman's scarf. I put it on and looked at myself in a viewing glass. Tears filled my eyes: it was horrible. Hideous. My back and neck ached from looking down, my eyes stung with tears, my brain whirled with all the instructions that I had just been given.

That was it: knitting was the worst instrument of torture even invented to indoctrinate young girls to be ladies. I would never knit again.

But, I saw Mama sitting sadly in the front room: maybe I would try tomorrow for her sake. Perhaps I would even make something for her! Say, can you can knit _names_ into items?


End file.
